


Cohabitation

by artemihs



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, love is a longhouse with no doors, morning snuggles with dandelion puff and co
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29814489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemihs/pseuds/artemihs
Summary: He pulls her hand up and lays it on his chest, over the glossy scarring there, the crooked dip of the broken rib that healed unevenly beneath it, then moves her palm just over his heart, as he thinks,is it you who is calling for me or is it I who has been waiting for you all this time?sometime in between Snotinghamscire and Ravensthorpe, Eivor and Vili reacquaint themselves.
Relationships: Eivor/Vili Hemmingson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50





	Cohabitation

**Author's Note:**

> I was hoping to be a little further along in my longfic before sharing this (what's continuity anyways?) but you know what, I simply cannot hold it in anymore. 100% Eivor/Vili brainrot here. standalone, takes place sometime in between Snotinghamscire and reaching Ravensthorpe :)

“Do you remember,” he will begin to Eivor in a quiet moment, or when they come across something in their travels that inexplicably tugs at a memory he had almost forgotten. _These flowers, we had them in Stavanger, they bloom every spring. This cliff reminds me of the one you pushed me over into the lake, and no, it still isn’t my fault. Remember the trick we pulled on the cooks to steal those pies, how we got scolded so loudly the entire village could hear our shame?_

Not because he’s trying to make light conversation to pass the time on the ship or as they ride on horseback, or because he thinks that she might have actually forgotten, but because some part of him wants to be _sure_ that the memory is still there, buried under the absence of ten years, that it existed, they both shared it then and still do now. Like throwing an anchor out to sea and searching for a hold in the bedrock, some known ground from which to tether their past selves to their current bodies, these strange, familiar yet new bodies. 

He will tell her the memory, from a time and place that they can’t go back to and doesn’t exist anymore (“One cannot look back, you understand? You cannot go home again,” he hears Finnr’s gruff and adamant voice in his head, ringing down the longship at the end of one of his stories), and she will respond with that familiar quirk of her lips and warmth in her eyes, _Of course I do._

_Come here_ , she says, and he obeys, finding her hands in the dark, feeling the press of her palms against his chest. They haven’t talked about it, those words they said to each other, _just a flickering flame, just this once,_ words that seem so far removed from where they are now, where they have ended up since that night, that he can’t remember exactly why they had ever said them in the first place. It was something said but not felt, meant to mitigate the complications, a perfunctory recognition of the responsibilities that lay ahead of them, of a future that did not end up like _this_ , the two of them, here now, like this. 

Her hands push up at the edges of his shirt, running over the jagged lines of scars beneath it, over the smooth dip of muscle and bone. His fingers settle in her hair, sweeping it back, brushing over the scar on her cheek; he wants to kiss every scar on her face, her neck, down her body, tracing the path between every old and new part of her, but instead he waits, for her hands to guide him to what’s next, to draw the course he will follow. 

They were bad at planning, at timing their declarations, didn’t they know that by now? It was better, much easier, to simply _feel_ , to understand each other in this way, a way that is entirely their own, without either one of them ever needing to utter a word.

She tilts her head up against his jaw, his beard brushing over her forehead, and presses her lips over the steady pulse in his neck. It sends a shudder through him, the sudden rush of heat at that, and it’s the night in Snotinghamscire all over again, makes him feel like a banked fire that needs only the softest whisper of breath, _come here to me,_ to send the flames roaring back to life again. He pulls her hand up and lays it on his chest, over the glossy scarring there, the crooked dip of the broken rib that healed unevenly beneath it, then moves her palm just over his heart, as he thinks, _is it you who is calling for me or is it I who has been waiting for you all this time?_

Eivor draws one hand down his cheek, rubbing her thumb along the ridge of his cheekbone, running her fingers through his beard, cradling his jaw and angling his face down to hers. To bring him back to her attention. “Your eyes,” she murmurs, studying his face intently, “they are like the deepest blue of the sea, the waves that lure the wandering sea-farer to its depths, the spirit restless in mind and wild of heart, but calm in the storm winds, at home. Not as a stone, unmoving and smoothened by the waves, but as a flight of wings, taken freely by the breeze any which way the gods may favor that day. Have I told you that before?” 

Her gaze burns into his, and the teasing quip he had ready falls away, as something heavy inside him that he hadn’t realized he had been dragging around with him all these years lifts. He responds by pulling her hip up against his and bringing his lips down hard on hers, hears the soft noise she makes in the back of her throat as she laughs into his mouth, and she’ll know, she always does, that what he means is, _I have missed you for so long._

She has always been better with words than he.

On their way to Ravensthorpe, she tells him of her settlement, of those who came with the clan from Norway, familiar faces and names, part of his family too; of Svend’s passing, Alvis and Holger’s perpetual grievances, Tekla’s new apprentices. And then of the people he doesn’t know of yet, of the Saxon farmers and their families, travelers and merchants from far away lands, children from all over England who had no home or family and now found one. Eivor describes the burgeoning relationships between the newcomers and her people, a thriving feeling he knows also, for he has seen for himself the joys of that same blossoming growth, the unique alignment of two very different peoples, in his own village.

It is hard-won. He understands too well what it takes, sometimes ruthlessly so, to build peace. Of course, Eivor would never see it as a burden, much less admit to it – as his father never did. This side of her, freed from the shadow of revenge that had driven so much of her early life, is new to him, but familiar too in this way. There are some people who fall effortlessly into the grooves of leadership, without ever seeking it, who take up the mantle and shoulder its weight, without ever realizing it, merely doing what needed to be done without question or hesitation. 

He knows it; he grew up with it, saw it firsthand in his father, how Hemming had rebuilt a shire from the bones and ashes of civil war, invasion, the bitter clashing of two cultures. Now Vili sees it in Eivor, this quality. Names and stories roll off her tongue easily as they sail on, her smile and voice fond with a glowing, affectionate pride, the usual tautness of her body visibly uncoiling as they near Ravensthorpe.

 _You have made yourself a home._ And then he thinks, _y_ _ou have made yourself._ She had found her honor in fighting as a warrior, but found her purpose and her strength in protecting and providing for others to live and flourish in peace. He would never tire of seeing her like this, not merely content or happy, but _fulfilled._ Vili would remind her everyday of it if he could, if that would keep this carefree and soft smile on her face and her resolve steady to its course when it swayed. He would do that. If she ever forgets it, he will make sure she remembers where her heart is, where it has always been.

There was a saying among his clan when they first began the work of building Hemthorpe: to understand a Saxon, live, work, and pray with them for a week. To understand a Norse or Dane, feast with them in the longhouse for a night. The simple reasoning being that everyone is in everyone’s business in the longhouse, the absolute lack of privacy and inhibition guaranteeing that one would see all the best and worst of the clan in the span of a single night. In fact, Vili doubts the concept of privacy even existed for his clan before his people merged with the modest virtue-minded Saxons in Hemthorpe (a notion so dubiously contested by the Saxons, who upon entering Hemthorpe’s longhouse for their first time would exclaim “But where are all the _doors_?”).

The Ravensthorpe longhouse is as much as he expects – the high knotwork-carved archways that open right up to the grand feasting hall, the tables and furnishings in a perpetual half-dressed state of revelry, the all-purpose sleeping and storage lofts that run from one end of the hall to the other straight into the other rooms – with no doors, of course – and he thinks he will fall right at home here. 

Until he sees that Eivor's room is positioned exactly right in front of the main entrance, that practically anyone passing by outside can see right through to her bed, which sets off warning flares in his head – despite her casual insistence that she doesn’t spend a lot of time here, that she much prefers a hastily pitched tent surrounded by her clansmen or on some cot on the floor in the barracks any given night, that the room is mostly for the animals at this point – and his defensive instincts kick in, so while he’s waiting for her to debrief Randvi in the war room on all that’s happened in between Snotinghamscire and here, he just absently starts cataloguing weak points and possible areas of defense along the perimeter of the room and longhouse, thinks that maybe when she’s not around he can come back later and set up the place with some traps – something simple, like a spear spring or spike trap – just to be sure. It’s not something he consciously attunes himself to, more of a vestigial impulse retained from years of helping the Saxons fortify their defenses for their homes and villages.

 _There’s no need to protect the Wolf-Kissed,_ he can imagine people saying to him incredulously, looking at him as if he were stupid or over-protective, or both (something he wouldn’t deny), and he thinks _yes, of course, that is utterly obvious_ , that he’s not actually _worried_ about Eivor’s safety when she’s asleep there, in full view of any passing stranger or malevolent bandit with a grudge, or as it now comes to mind, of the complete lack of privacy of her bed being out in the open (he’s not shy, they've both grown up in and around longhouses, and besides, there exist more exciting places for a tryst), but he can’t shake off the urge anyway, she would never have to know, and there was no harm in it. 

He averts his eyes when she finally comes back out of the war room and saves his thoughts for later.

Anyhow, things happen, and Eivor had a habit of inviting unfortunate things to happen around her frequently – a trivial memory materializes vaguely in the back of his head, when he and Eivor were twelve and she had somehow managed to get her feet tangled up in coil of net and rope on the docks and tripped into the ice-cold sea, and for some reason dragged him with her – and no matter how many epithets she wins herself or songs and verses she gets written, to him some fundamental part of her will always be that young spirited girl he had befriended so quickly handing him a wooden carved wolf and saying, _I carved this for you, you better like it, I almost cut my finger off making it_ , and then more tentatively, her eyes anxious, _do you like it_?

“What are you thinking?” Eivor murmurs sleepily against his shoulder, later that night. His arm is curled around her, his fingers tangled in her hair, which he runs through absently, smoothening the loose strands back from her face. He can’t possibly tell her about the traps he’s hoping to implement, _just in case,_ so he tells her about the memory instead.

“I can’t believe you remember that,” she says, not because she really can’t believe it, but because she seems a little embarrassed about it, for reasons he’s not entirely sure of still, after all these years, but oh, how endearing it is.

“Of course I do,” he says.

The next morning, he wakes up to a warm weight above his head and something soft draped down his forehead, covering half of his face. Still groggy and slow with sleep, Vili reaches a hand up and gets back a faint high-pitched mewl. He withdraws his hand. He knows an interrupted sleeper when he hears one.

“Can this be,” Vili murmurs, recalling what Eivor had said to him yesterday about Ravensthorpe’s friendly four-legged companions, “the elusive Dandelion Puff?” He brushes the fox’s tail out of his face so he can breathe and see, gently so he doesn’t disturb the fox nestled against his head. Then he has to blink a few times, to make sure he isn’t seeing anything.

The bed is full of animals. Nali the longship cat is curled up on the other side of Eivor, two stray mottled dogs are sprawled across the foot of the bed, one drooling on the blankets, and a plump grey tabby is stretched out in between Eivor’s feet. And Dandy on his head. Quite frankly he’s surprised the sheep and cows haven’t found their way here yet. _Fitting_ , he thinks, all the lost misfits and loyal strays of England, in her bed.

A hand finds him from the side. “Dandy! She’s taken a liking to you,” Eivor says sleepily, inching her body close to his, her sleep-swollen eyes warm as she smiles, “she never lets me get too close to her.”

Then a large, shaggy white wolf appears, padding into the room from the main hall. “Dwolfg, there you are,” Eivor says happily, shifting over and away from him, what little she can so she doesn’t disturb the other animals, “come up here, my girl. Move over, Arse-stick.”

“Eivor, there’s no – ” 

Dwolfg jumps up the bed and settles right in between and on top of Eivor and Vili, laying her head down on Eivor’s lap, her hind legs and tail resting lopsidedly on his stomach. Clearly this was a familiar arrangement; Vili relents, grudgingly giving up the last of his contact with her body and rolling over to the edge of the bed. 

“This is Dwolfg’s spot. She has kept me faithful company for so many seasons now. Such a fierce companion deserves her rest.” She ruffles the wolf’s fur, and the wolf lets out a contented growl, stretching out her legs now that Vili had relinquished his space.

Feeling just the slightest sting of rejection, he gets out of bed entirely, his feet meeting the cool floor, desperately wishing to return to the warmth of the blankets and her body beside him. 

“Banished from the Wolf-Kissed’s bed. The dents to my dignity know no end,” he says, grousing dramatically. Dandy, still curled up on his pillow, lifts her head up and gives a mew of protest at his sudden absence.

“It’s cold now,” Eivor says, lamenting the loss of her heat source, “come back.”

“No. Not until you give this war-weary _drengr_ some of his dignity back.” Vili reaches down to scratch Dandy behind the ears, and the fox stretches into his touch contentedly.

“Your dignity? I was not aware there was any left.”

“Come now Eivor, where are your manners? I have heard tales of your poet’s tongue, as if the All-father himself gave you his gift of rhyme, and I should like to hear a few of those honey-words grace my ears for once. Be generous.”

“I am generous,” she insists. Then she reaches over Dwolfg and throws back the blanket, revealing the empty space, and gives him her best pout, as if saying, _Will you come here already and stop this charade?_

“Such hurtful words,” Vili shakes his head sadly, bending to pick Dandy up and cradling the fox against his chest, “perhaps I will just have to look elsewhere for comfort, and take Dandy with me…”

A flicker of doubt crosses her face. Eivor sits up and brushes a hand along Dwolfg’s back. “Fine, Arse-stick – Vili. I will say freely, that after all my years fighting in Norway, then here in England amongst the best of warriors, there is still no finer _drengr_ I would choose to fight beside and trust with my life than you. That Dandy already gives you more love than she has ever shown me – even though _I_ was the one who rescued her – and that is a telling feat in itself, and all the other animals too, even Tove’s tattoo pig, probably love you best. Or they will soon enough. And the people love you wherever you go. I can think of no greater judge of character and of one’s actions than that.”

She looks up at him. “And...of all the precious moments of brightness to happen since I landed in England amidst an uncertain future and unfamiliar people, seeing you again has been the dearest to my heart.”

They were not a skald’s words, said with no ornamentation or metaphor, but were bare, simple and true. They needed nothing else. 

Vili lays Dandy gently back on the bed, not saying a word, giving the fox a kiss before he straightens up and faces Eivor, crossing his arms together. “Quite an admission from the famed, battle-hardened, leader of ravens herself.”

“Listen troll-face – ”

“Eivor the Wolf-Kissed, glorious raven-feeder, swift spear-reddener and vengeful reaper of the corpse-sea,” Vili comes around to Eivor’s side of the bed, pulling himself up in between the sleeping dogs, resting a hand on her leg and sliding his fingers slowly up along her thigh as he leans in towards her, “fierce breaker of shield-thunder, scourge of the sword-storm, beguiling robber of men’s feeble hearts.” Her eyes grow wide, her gaze darkening with a hunger as she watches him.

He reaches her and nudges his nose to hers. “...and underneath all that, just Eivor. My best and oldest friend." 

Eivor brings her hands up to his face, brushing his hair aside before pressing her forehead against his for one slow, calm moment before her lips find his, so soft that when she finally pulls back he follows her on instinct, pulling himself to her, _come here to me,_ feels her push up into his touch, only there is no way he can do what he wants to right now, so he reluctantly leans back.

“I’d tell you not to start what you can’t finish, but I'm afraid we have a full bed.”

He laughs. "It can wait." He moves up beside her and shifts his body under hers, gathering his arms around her as Eivor lays Dwolfg’s head gently on her lap, settling her on the blankets against their bodies as the rest of the animals doze contentedly around them. There is more than enough space now. 

Vili sighs, pressing his cheek to her head. “I have missed you.”

Her hand finds his again, fingers lacing over his own, and he feels a squeeze. _I know._

“What have you been doing?” she asks when she finally catches him ogling a moment too long at a perfect place right in between one of the shelves and the wall that he could mount a projectile spring. Somewhat sheepishly, somewhat adamant, he tells her of the traps.

There is laughter in her eyes. “You weren’t going to actually try to set those up here? I’m glad I asked, for all I’d expect you’d just injure yourself doing it. Lose a finger, or a toe. I’d be one _drengr_ short, and I just got you here.” Clearly she didn’t think much of his defensive prowess.

“I am excellent at building traps,” he says.

She arches an eyebrow. “Remember when we’d play with the other children at building fortresses? You were tasked with keeping our treasure hoard safe. Don’t let me remind you how that turned out.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn’t protecting anything important.”

Eivor looks up into his eyes. Her lips curl up into a smile. “Well, I don’t have any traps. What am I going to do?” Her tone is somber, and it catches him off-guard. 

Then she says, “Worry not, fierce _drengr_. I have a better idea. I will just drag you everywhere with me. Especially into bed. Why need a trap when I can have my best warrior at my side day and night? Will that put your mind at ease?”

“Careful what you ask for, dear Eivor,” Vili warns her, deadly serious, “or you’ll never be rid of me. I’ll follow you wherever you go.”

Her laugh is warm, comfortable, like it’s a well-worn joke between them. But he thinks, _I’ve followed you this far already, haven’t I?_

Vili is at the docks later that day when she finds him, leaning against the railing and staring out into the waters. He feels Eivor come up behind him, sliding her arms around his waist, bunching the fabric of his shirt up in the middle as she nestles her face into his back. He leans into her warmth, steady and still as an anchor in her arms, and places his hand over hers, holding her there.

So many things still left unsaid between them, so much more yet to be understood. The absence of ten years would not be unraveled in a week, or a month, or several. _One cannot look back, you cannot go home again_ , the voice warns again in his head. He feels her press a kiss to his shoulder, feels the uncertainty disperse as quickly as it had come. 

And some things they don’t have to say. 

_Welcome home._


End file.
